The new pop-up help display is annoying

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I thought they said you could turn it off or on. Dont remember how.

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Originally Posted by Ruri

I thought they said you could turn it off or on. Dont remember how.

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Click the "?" in the bottom right corner of the Micro menu. :)

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

Click the "?" in the bottom right corner of the Micro menu. :)

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Thanks for the quick response!

Apparently it's not annoying enough for you to read it and learn how to turn it off.

I'm so happy I can turn annoying tooltips for skills off in the future..
I didnt need it anyways.
But for now, it's kind of useful. A lot of stuff changed, so I have to actually read what a skill does before using it x)

I like being able to see the descriptions of my abilities on the action bar (at least the names), but dislike the popup text on everything else. Disabling it, as stated above, unfortunately gets rid of both of those.

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Originally Posted by Shikaree

But the menu stuff? I know what the Item section is for, I know what Attributes are, etc, and it seems a little too much of a hand holding for me. Unnecessary clutter.

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Maybe not necessarily for new player ?

Er, I checked these help popups in game now. Its badly done. I d like to keep battle description for the skill bar but I d like to turn off everything else, especially this one in the menu while equip... >_<

I support OP idea.

Agreed. I liked being able to read action descriptions and names and not seeing stupid little help menus popping up in front of my gear. Please remove. I find it completely ridiculous.

Thanks everyone for the feedback about the popup help. We're currently working to implement the ability to turn popup help on or off by widget, as well as which sections you'd like to have the text pop up on. These features are currently on track for 1.21 release.

While we're at it Bayohne, would it be possible for us to have an option for "Ability Names Only" on the action bar popup help? I really can't tell a couple of Archer icons apart but I don't need the huge descriptions now that I've set everything up and know what combos to what.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

Thanks everyone for the feedback about the popup help. We're currently working to implement the ability to turn popup help on or off by widget, as well as which sections you'd like to have the text pop up on. These features are currently on track for 1.21 release.

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I know this is a little off topic. But could the same be applied to UI locking? For instance when it is toggled every widget + windows are locked into position. It seems a little bit much.

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Originally Posted by Riv

I like being able to see the descriptions of my abilities on the action bar (at least the names), but dislike the popup text on everything else. Disabling it, as stated above, unfortunately gets rid of both of those.

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Agreed. SE , please, let us keep the skills descriptions at the attack bar, but let us disable it for the gear tab. It's really annoying!

I feel that party invites and raises should have a pop up box in the middle of the screen (Similar to the guildleve stuff), either that or allow us to change the position of the pop up text.

I keep missing party invites and raises :S

You should consider adding a pop up box when you are K.O'd similar to FF11. (ie, Do you wish to return to your Home Point?)

Found a bit of a glitch in the pop up text.

When selecting armour and items in the inventory/gear window the pop up text obscures the view of the item information.

Image below.

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7518/98046101.jpg

^ this please fix right away!

Sort of related in a way, but reading massive walls of text for each skill to see what order to combo for different effects is a bit annoying, i know we will learn our roles again soon, but i dont play every class every week.

The purple circle is good to show what combo is next to use in the heat of battle, but I also want a better visual way to know -in advance- which combo route to take if I'm after inflicting a debuff, wanting more accuracy, etc etc.

Then there's the issue of remembering to be in a certain position around the mob... lots of things to visualise.

Things like that you will forget in the heat of a HNM battle for example.

The present way is cope-able for us as we have many months in game time, but I would wonder how utterly annoying combos would be for new players when even quite a number of people had to wonder why certain combos were'nt proc'ing until moving around mobs, then reverting to Zel's thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ic-Combo-Guide) and keeping it open while playing!

A more visual way for showing the whole route of the combo would be handy.

It almost makes one wonder why SE bothered with positioning around mobs so much, why not go a different route like combo route A will incapacitate legs which will slow, combo route B incapacitate head which will blind or silence etc

Remember, this will only get even more complex as the level cap raises and more combos are introduced T_T

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Originally Posted by Riv

I like being able to see the descriptions of my abilities on the action bar (at least the names), but dislike the popup text on everything else. Disabling it, as stated above, unfortunately gets rid of both of those.

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Agreed with this.

With the New Battle / Spell Icons, it's handy to have the Tool Tip / Info *just* for those icons in battle, but be able to turn it OFF for everything else.

Thanks!

Haven't seen any decent complaints in awhile. Good job Square, get that pay to play rolling and clean these forums up. I want to see some interesting posts now.

It wouldnt be so damn annoying if the help menu didnt pop up over other info (IM tlaking when you are checking gear to equip)... it pops RIGHT over teh item description just above the stats of the item.

Personally, I'm a big fan of tooltips. This is one of the most helpful additions to the UI ever.

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Originally Posted by Irana

It wouldnt be so damn annoying if the help menu didnt pop up over other info (IM tlaking when you are checking gear to equip)... it pops RIGHT over teh item description just above the stats of the item.

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Haha yea this is annoying as hell, how they missed this I will never know.

I might have turned this off , is there a way to turn it back on?

Yes, just click the ? looking icon in the micro menu (default bottom right hand of screen).

I like the new tooltips, especially useful for learning the new combo system. However, while trying to gear my character, the tooltips for equipment completely cover up the window that displays that equipment's stats. So in order to change what my character is currently wearing, I have to turn off the help feature, gear up, then turn it back on to know which abilities I am using. Hopefully this will be changed soon, could easily be done so if the tool tip in the inventory UI showed above the targeted item instead of below it.

We received some comments about wanting to only display the action name in the popup text, and as we mentioned in my previous comment, we will be addressing this by separating portions of the action bar settings as well as adding an On/Off setting.

In future patches, we will be looking into making it possible to adjust specific settings, such as displaying the action name, etc. for the action bar pop-up help.

While we cannot make any promises currently, we will look in to any other feedback you have, so please keep it coming!

I suggest a "medium" tool-tip setting. Like the "On" would be the full solid glow it is now then pressing it would go to medium setting next, which would be a more faded color, and then just Off. lol

Medium would hide all the obvious stuff but display basic information for the action bar like AoE type (if any), position required to combo, and the preceding combo action. Should be short and right to the point. Could also display a shortened description for food and medicine effects when alchemist and culinarian are revamped. ( MP+ , duration: 30 mins)

Right now its either too much info or out in the dark. lol
I feel the "medium" setting would be helpful and less intrusive. Hope they could do it.

Something else that I think should be mentioned is the new introductory tutorials at the start of the game.

When you first make a brand new character in the beginning of the game, the very first two tutorial boxes which appear (one that tells you how to walk and another that tells you how to move the camera) are very annoying because they force you to complete the actions they're describing before they will allow you to proceed.

It's good to have these pop-up tutorial windows in there, but they shouldn't force the player to preform the described action. A good tooltip or pop-up tutorial window will tell a player what to do, but will NOT force them to do it!

FF13 had this exact same problem and it was super annoying.

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Originally Posted by Xeonerable

I suggest a "medium" tool-tip setting. Like the "On" would be the full solid glow it is now then pressing it would go to medium setting next, which would be a more faded color, and then just Off. lol

Medium would hide all the obvious stuff but display basic information for the action bar like AoE type (if any), position required to combo, and the preceding combo action. Should be short and right to the point. Could also display a shortened description for food and medicine effects when alchemist and culinarian are revamped. ( MP+ , duration: 30 mins)

Right now its either too much info or out in the dark. lol
I feel the "medium" setting would be helpful and less intrusive. Hope they could do it.

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Skyward Sword does this with its controls and it works really well as you can "Graduate" to the settings from Beginner -> Lite -> Pro as you get more used to the game. Beginner shows a wiimote overly with the controls laid out with text that is always visible on-screen. Lite removes the wiimote, replaces some text with icons and gets rid of a few control displays. Pro only shows the Item you have equipped and whenever you have to push up/down on the Dpad for activating certain things.

I'd love a Medium setting since I like seeing what move I'm selecting by name since some of them have similar icons, but I don't need the huge description.

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Originally Posted by Estellios

I like seeing what move I'm selecting by name since some of them have similar icons

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Here's an idea: why don't we redo the icons so that they're distinct and more easily distinguishable from one another?

How about having an On/Off setting for every command instead of typing them , ex: /display head off

Maybe just having the name of the action and a second line with the requirement like, storm path/rear

The problem is the positioning of the help window. What annoys me is that the help is almost always on top of something else that I want to view. If you could simply address where you display the help window/text, you could solve the problem.

I know you guys are in a huge hurry to meet your dead lines but you must be careful about little stuff like this or you'll be running back later on to fix it. I have been a dev for over 20 years and this is the kind of stuff that takes a few extra minutes or maybe in some cases, an extra hour or two. However, what's worse, taking the extra time now, or having to re-study the code again later on to clean up the mess?

You all are on the right track but be a bit more careful in your coding.

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Originally Posted by Rhianu

Here's an idea: why don't we redo the icons so that they're distinct and more easily distinguishable from one another?

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That would help but I would still like names-only popup help along with that. Truth be told, it's only a few archer icons that are the offenders, I think everything else in the game is easy to distinguish.

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Originally Posted by Uzziah

The problem is the positioning of the help window. What annoys me is that the help is almost always on top of something else that I want to view. If you could simply address where you display the help window/text, you could solve the problem.

I know you guys are in a huge hurry to meet your dead lines but you must be careful about little stuff like this or you'll be running back later on to fix it. I have been a dev for over 20 years and this is the kind of stuff that takes a few extra minutes or maybe in some cases, an extra hour or two. However, what's worse, taking the extra time now, or having to re-study the code again later on to clean up the mess?

You all are on the right track but be a bit more careful in your coding.

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For years, I complained in prime-site Forums about similar issues with FFXI... the casting counter would always position itself smack on top of the Macro Palette, preventing you from seeing whatever was on the left hand side of said palette. This became a real problem when they multiplied the number of macro books you could save. Nothing was done in the years I played. Hopefully, an official forum will help in this case.

R

There was another change that came with the pop-up help that was a complete step backwards.

I'm not sure about mouse and keyboard, but with a gamepad there's a button that will select your status effects. Before when you did this the black would stretch down accordingly and the description of the selected status effect would be displayed immediately.

http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/...ldHelpText.png

Now you have to sit and wait for pop-up help to take its sweet time for each effect you check, in which time the effect(s) could have faded too soon for the new pop-up help to tell you what's going on with your character. In extreme cases you could be dead by the time you realize your health is dropping from DoT effects, rather than be given time to react and heal.

This downgrade can be especially annoying with effects that share the same symbol.

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Originally Posted by Uzziah

The problem is the positioning of the help window. What annoys me is that the help is almost always on top of something else that I want to view. If you could simply address where you display the help window/text, you could solve the problem.

I know you guys are in a huge hurry to meet your dead lines but you must be careful about little stuff like this or you'll be running back later on to fix it. I have been a dev for over 20 years and this is the kind of stuff that takes a few extra minutes or maybe in some cases, an extra hour or two. However, what's worse, taking the extra time now, or having to re-study the code again later on to clean up the mess?

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The game displays the help in four different languages... three of which they don't use themselves. And oddly most people haven't noticed it blocking anything vital. I'm not sure what you are referring too?